Let your ear now be attentive, and your eyes open, that you may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you now, day and night, for the children of Israel your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you: both I and my father's house have sinned.

We have dealt very corruptly against you, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances, which you commanded your servant Moses.

But if you turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them; though some of you were cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from there, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.

Now these are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power, and by your strong hand.

Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build: but you have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.

And cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before you: for they have provoked you to anger before the builders.

Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy grain, because of the famine.

There were also those that said, We have borrowed money for the king's tax, and that upon our lands and vineyards.

Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards.

And I said unto them, We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, who were sold unto the nations; and will you even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found nothing to answer.

Moreover from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even unto the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that is, twelve years, I and my brethren have not eaten the food allowance of the governor.

Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people.

And you have also appointed prophets to proclaim concerning you at Jerusalem, saying, There is a king in Judah: and now shall it be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let us take counsel together.

Therefore was he hired, that I should be afraid, and do so, and sin, and that they might have matter for an evil report, that they might reproach me.

My God, think you upon Tobiah and Sanballat according to these their works, and on the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, that would have put me in fear.

You, even you, are LORD alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and you preserve them all; and the host of heaven worships you.

And found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his descendants, and have performed your words; for you are righteous:

Yet you are just in all that is brought upon us; for you have done right, but we have done wickedly:

Neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept your law, nor hearkened unto your commandments and your testimonies, with which you did testify against them.

For they have not served you in their kingdom, or in your great goodness that you gave them, or in the large and rich land which you gave before them, neither turned they from their wicked works.

And it yields much increase unto the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins: also they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.

And that we should bring the firstfruits of our dough, and our offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, of wine and of oil, unto the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God; and the tithes of our ground unto the Levites, that the same Levites might have the tithes in all the cities of our work.

Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for its service.

Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites.